


Fever Dream

by draculard



Series: Comfortween [12]
Category: Star Wars: Thrawn Series - Timothy Zahn (2017)
Genre: F/M, Fever, Fluff, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 05:35:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26966788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: One morning, Grand Admiral Thrawn doesn't answer his comm.
Relationships: Karyn Faro/Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo
Series: Comfortween [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946224
Comments: 9
Kudos: 60
Collections: Comfortween 2020





	Fever Dream

At 0900 ship-time, Faro sent Thrawn a quick message over comlink. It was nothing that required an immediate response — just a speedy comm to let him know that the latest shipment of power cell replacements had come in — and so it didn’t set off any alarm bells in Faro’s head when Thrawn didn’t answer.

Did he typically answer his comm? Yes. But were there times when he chose not to, or simply didn’t hear it go off because he was studying art? Also yes. Nothing to be alarmed about. Faro didn’t even note the lack of response; she went about her day without thinking about it.

Three hours later — 1200 ship-time — Faro was overseeing training maneuvers off the Chimaera’s starboard bow when her comlink beeped. She glanced at it, noting the name that popped up with some surprise.

What the hell was Governor Pryce doing comming _her?_ Pryce usually did her best to pretend Faro didn’t exist; she certainly never contacted her _personally_. Faro frowned at the comm for a moment, then glanced around the bridge as if she might find answers in the blank faces staring back at her.

She pressed the mic button.

“Commodore Faro here,” she said. 

“ _Ah, good_ ,” came Pryce’s snappish voice at once. “ _So at least_ one _of you is capable of answering your calls_.”

Faro stared down at her comlink, feeling suddenly nauseated by a sense of overwhelming dread. Thrawn hadn’t answered her comm this morning; clearly, he hadn’t been present for his holo-meeting with Pryce at noon, and now he wasn’t answering _her_ comms, either.

“One moment,” she said absently to Pryce. She switched over to Thrawn’s private comm code. “Sir, this is Commodore Faro,” Faro said. “Please respond.”

She met Hammerly’s eyes across the bridge and ceded control with a quick gesture to the command walkway. Faro was already making quick strides toward the hatch, keeping her comlink to her lips in case Thrawn chose now to respond.

He didn’t. 

This wasn’t good, Faro thought. It was feasibly in-character for Thrawn to ignore a routine comm message from one of his officers; it _wasn’t_ in-character for him to miss an important meeting with Governor Pryce — not without first roping Faro into some high-concept shenanigans, at least. If he was ignoring Pryce, then he ought to be out on the bridge conducting some sort of experiment in hyperspace travel, or so Faro’s experience with Thrawn informed her.

For him to be ignoring Pryce meant something bad had happened. She thought of the death troopers stationed outside his office door — they’d keep anyone from getting to him, so perhaps Thrawn hadn’t been attacked, she told herself.

But when she made it to Thrawn’s office, the death troopers weren’t there. She hit the door release and peeked inside, taking in the dim lights and empty desk. A quick glance at Thrawn’s makeshift living quarters showed her that the tiny cot in there was empty, the blankets folded and the sheets unused.

She backed out of the office, trying his comm again to no avail. At his other office, she found the same thing — no death troopers at the door, and an empty desk inside. By the time she made it to his quarters, she was getting messages not just from Pryce, but also from Admiral Konstantine, who’d been scheduled to speak with Thrawn at 1230. 

A surge of tentative relief filled her when she saw the death troopers stationed outside Thrawn’s door. She hesitated before them, looking each one in the face — or rather, looking them straight in their black armored faceplates.

“The Grand Admiral isn’t responding to his messages,” she told them, trying not to let her concern show. “Has he given you orders to turn visitors away?”

The death troopers didn’t respond immediately. One of them kept his helmet facing Faro but must have tongued his comlink on, because she heard him say, “Admiral, visitor for you. Commodore Faro.”

There was a long pause as they waited for Thrawn’s response.

“He hasn’t left his quarters all day?” asked Faro.

The death troopers looked at each other. If they hadn’t been so well-trained, Faro suspected they would have been shifting from foot to foot like nervous schoolboys.

“He’s never spent all day in his quarters before,” said Faro, keeping the alarm out of her voice. “I’d like to check on him.”

She resisted the urge to add ‘if you’ll allow it,’ reminding herself that, while they certainly occupied a unique position in the Chimaera’s command structure as Thrawn’s bodyguards, the death troopers still answered to her. They stepped sideways at the same time, allowing Faro full access to Thrawn’s door.

She fingered her code cylinders and stared at the lock, biting her lip. This would only work if, by some miracle, Thrawn had seen fit to give her access to his private rooms. She scanned the code cylinders, holding her breath; if her codes didn’t go through, she’d have to find somebody to slice her in, and God only knew how long that would take — and what precious time they might lose while Thrawn was stuck on his own on the other side, possibly unconscious or even—

The doors slid open with a pneumatic hiss. 

The lights were dim inside Thrawn’s quarters, just as they had been in both his offices, and for a moment Faro felt herself spiraling, certain that this room would be empty, too. But there was something about the quarters that gave her a distinct lived-in sense; she stepped inside, the death troopers crowding in behind her as the door slid closed again.

“Sir?” Faro called.

There was no response. She glanced around the small living area; there was a datapad and various cards scattered over the coffee table; a mouse droid nearby was nosing at an old-fashioned wastebasket, trying to knock it over so it could suck up the wads of tissue inside. 

Faro eyed the mouse droid as she crossed the room, going first to the small study off to the side. She hit the door release and poked her head inside, finding a replica there of Thrawn’s command chair; art holos lit up the room, but there was no one there. Behind her, one of the death troopers made straight for Thrawn’s refresher and palmed the door open without knocking first.

The faint scent of vomit filled the air. Faro wrinkled her nose and joined the death trooper; the fresher was clean but in a state of disarray, with the cabinets hanging open and various toiletries scattered haphazardly off the floor. Faro accidentally kicked a half-empty bottle of mouthwash as she stepped inside. The shower curtain had been ripped off its rod and now dangled half inside the stall and half out.

There were two doors leading to the fresher, just like in Faro’s quarters — one could access the fresher either from Thrawn’s living room or from his bedroom. Near the door to his bedroom was a crumpled, damp-looking pile of clothes. Faro picked up the first item, an Imperial-issue t-shirt, and found it soaked through with sweat.

She heard the death trooper mutter something that his helmet turned into static.

“Stay here,” she said, dropping the shirt back onto the tile. “I’m going to check his bedroom.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She slipped through the fresher door and into Thrawn’s dark bedroom; instead of waiting for her eyes to adjust, she fumbled for her comlink and switched it on, using the dim glow to find her way to Thrawn’s bed. She could tell at once that he was in there, beneath the blankets. A tuft of blue-black hair was visible from across the room.

“Sir?” she said. 

She stopped by the side of his bed, gently tugging the blankets back to expose Thrawn’s face. His hair was damp with sweat, his lips chapped and slightly parted. She pulled the blankets back a little farther and saw his bare chest rising and falling slightly as he breathed. With a sense of relief, she let the blankets fall back into place and gently pressed the back of her hand to his forehead, grimacing at the temperature; his skin was as hot as a furnace.

She smoothed the hair back from his forehead and leaned closer to him.

“Thrawn,” she said.

His eyes blinked open slowly, as if the mere act of raising his eyelids required more energy than he could afford to expend. After a long moment, he focused on her, not seeming to recognize who she was at first.

“Thrawn?” she said again, watching his eyes flicker.

“Faro,” he said, his voice heavy and thick. 

Her name came out strangely accented; she watched as Thrawn extricated a hand from beneath his pillow and lifted it to his forehead, feeling her hand with obvious confusion, like he thought his forehead had somehow grown knuckles and fingers while he slept. After a moment, Thrawn either figured out what was really happening or accepted that he was permanently deformed; he closed his eyes again, leaving his hand on top of hers. 

“Put the blankets back,” he murmured.

Faro glanced down the length of the bed. “The blankets _are_ back,” she said. “I didn’t take them away.”

Thrawn accepted this news with a shiver, his grip on her hand tightening for a moment. His skin was so hot that, between his forehead and his palm, Faro was starting to sweat. “It’s cold,” he said quietly, the words slurring together.

With a sigh, Faro managed to pull her hand out of Thrawn’s loose grip. She turned to the doorway, where one of the death troopers was watching her, awaiting orders; she could see the other one crouched awkwardly on the fresher floor in his armor, picking up the various things Thrawn had knocked out of his cabinet shelves. 

“Return to your post,” she told them.

The first death trooper nodded, shutting the fresher door. Alone with Thrawn, Faro glanced around his bedroom, taking in the sights as her eyes adjusted. Like his fresher, it was fundamentally clean — no dust, and no trash laying around — but in a state of disarray. His closet door was open, and it looked like he’d accidentally grabbed an entire fistful of clothes and yanked them off the hangers, then just left them on the floor where they fell. He’d been searching for a sweater, Faro guessed — she knew because that same sweater was now on the floor next to his bed; she could see sweat stains all down the front of it, like he’d been working out in it instead of simply lying in bed.

She found his eyes again and saw him watching her with a kind of dazed, sleepy focus.

“What happened?” Faro asked him. 

He looked like he might answer her, but instead he arched his back and pushed the blankets down off his chest; it seemed like an inordinate struggle, Faro noted, as if the blankets were too heavy for him. She leaned forward and batted his hands away gently, taking the edges of the blankets away from him and folding them back. Thrawn settled back against the mattress bonelessly, with a sigh that sounded painfully congested.

Faro folded the blankets back to his waist, saw that he wasn’t wearing any trousers or underwear, and froze.

“Ahh…” she said, holding the blankets at an awkward angle so that they didn’t touch his skin but also managed to obscure her view. She glanced at Thrawn’s face, but his eyes were closed and he didn’t seem to notice her predicament; after a moment of mental struggle, Faro decided to just take the blankets away and leave Thrawn uncovered.

She left the blankets in a heap on an armchair nearby and turned back to Thrawn, taking in his lean, muscled body for a split second before she forced herself to focus solely on his face. His blue skin was gleaming with sweat.

“How long have you been sick?” she asked him, standing at the side of his bed and positioning herself so she couldn’t see anything farther down than his waist. He didn’t answer her right away; he was taking short, shallow breaths, as if fighting back nausea or pain.

“Sir?” Faro prompted. She found his hand and squeezed it gently, trying to call his attention back to her. “I need you to focus,” she told him when he finally opened his eyes and looked at her. “I have some questions to ask you, okay?”

He watched her for a moment as if processing her words, then gave a faint nod.

“Have you been to sick bay?” Faro asked.

Why she expected a straight answer from Thrawn of all people, she wasn’t sure. He just blinked up at her and said, in a cracked, hoarse voice, “It’s a Chiss ailment, Karyn. There’s nothing they can do.”

She stared down at him, her heart thudding — mostly because of that last sentence and the jolt of terror it sent through her, but partially because she wasn’t sure she’d ever heard Thrawn use her first name before.

“What do you mean, there’s nothing they can do?” she asked, keeping her voice level and calm.

Thrawn gave her a confused look. “I mean…” he said, and then switched to Sy Bisti with obvious effort. “...there’s nothing they can do to help me.”

“I get that, sir,” said Faro, trying not to let her concern turn into impatience. “But do you mean they can’t help you because … because whatever you have is terminal? Or do you mean that there’s nothing they can do because they don’t have the proper medicine, and it’ll run its course on her own?”

She gestured with her comlink as she spoke, and Thrawn squinted and turned his head away from the dim light. 

“Both?” he said faintly.

Faro felt her concern dial up a notch. “It can’t be both, sir,” she said.

“Neither,” he said more firmly. He lifted a hand and put it between the comlink and his eyes. “Please. Stop … _yekalu ukinguhlukemaze_.”

Faro paused to process the language shift, then snapped her comlink off and put it away. “I’m not _torturing_ you,” she said. “I just needed the comlink to see.” She paused, watching as he slowly opened his eyes again but continued staring at her with a pained squint. “Are you alright?” she asked.

“It’s fine,” said Thrawn heavily. “I understand the question now. No, it is not fatal.”

Faro studied him, taking in his symptoms — or what symptoms she could make out just by looking at him. It seemed to her not entirely dissimilar from the influenza human personnel were inoculated against every year.

“We might have something in sick bay for you,” she mused as she eyed him. Thrawn turned his face away from her, coughing wretchedly into his pillow as she thought it over. Faro put a hand between his shoulder blades while he coughed, his muscles twitching beneath her palm; when he was done, he didn’t bother to roll over again. He stayed on his stomach, his coughs turning weaker and weaker until they finally faded away.

“Yeah,” said Faro, more to herself than to Thrawn, “I’m gonna call a medical droid.”

He groaned into his pillow.

“It’s not an argument,” Faro told him, patting him on the back. She raised her comlink, then hesitated, eyeing the messages from Konstantine and Pryce — and now from Tarkin as well. “I can’t help but notice you didn’t cancel any of your meetings today,” she said dryly.

“...’s the weekend,” Thrawn mumbled into his pillow.

“It most certainly is not,” Faro said. “And besides which, you have meetings every weekend anyway.” Thrawn started to respond, but she cut him off with a quick “shush” and held the comlink to her lips, recording a message for everyone on Thrawn’s agenda. 

“The Grand Admiral has been called away on urgent business,” she said. She held a finger out when Thrawn lifted his head to object. “All meetings will be rescheduled at a later date. Thank you for your patience. Faro out.”

She played the message back, nodded to herself, and sent it. Thrawn had shifted so that he was still on his stomach but now facing her way, watching her wearily. 

“What are your symptoms?” Faro asked as she typed out a summons for a medical droid. 

“Hello, Governor,” Thrawn mumbled, burying his face in the pillow. He twisted his head to the side and cracked open an eye to glare at Faro’s comlink. “Not taking calls at the moment,” he said. 

With an exasperated sigh, Faro set the comlink aside. She sat gingerly on the bed next to Thrawn, moving her palm in soothing circles over his back, and waited for the med-droid to arrive. In the meantime, Thrawn began to shiver again; his sweat had soaked into the sheets, leaving them damp and cool, and there was nothing Faro could do but layer the blankets over him again.

At least now she wouldn’t have to worry about catching an accidental glance of his bare ass.

Worry.

 _Accidental_.

Faro pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m in over my head,” she muttered.

Luckily, Thrawn didn’t seem to hear. He pulled the blankets over his head and settled down at once in the way only very ill and very drunk people could do, falling into a shallow slumber almost instantly. Faro crossed her arms, watching him anxiously from the edge of the bed; he didn’t stir when, ten minutes later, the door to his quarters opened and a death trooper led the med-droid inside. 

“Thrawn,” Faro said, tapping the blankets above his shoulder. “Wake up.”

The droid wheeled itself up to the side of Thrawn’s bed and extended a scanner. “Simply lift the blankets, madam,” it said in a whirring, electronic voice. “I shall take the readings from here.”

Carefully, Faro searched beneath Thrawn’s arm for the edge of the blanket and pulled it back, exposing his face and shoulders. The droid edged closer, setting its scanner close to the tip of Thrawn’s sore-looking nose. There was a high-pitched beep and a wash of blue light as it scanned him, and as soon as the light flashed, Thrawn groaned and came awake, his face scrunching up in pain.

“That will be all, sir,” said the droid to Thrawn. Its head swiveled around to look at Faro. “Advised treatment: pat him on the back and say ‘there, there.’”

Faro looked at Thrawn, who was covering his face. “Advice noted,” she said to the droid. “You alright, sir?”

He responded with another groan, rubbing his eyes. 

“He is _not_ alright,” the droid informed Faro in cheerful tones. It made a faint humming sound as it calibrated the results of Thrawn’s scan. “He is suffering serious but nonfatal symptoms including nausea, fever, fatigue, full-body aches, sore throat, coughing, congestion, loss of appetite, light sensitivity—”

Thrawn made a complex hissing sound that might have been a curse in his native language. He sat up with great difficulty and put his hand over the droid’s blinking chestplate. “Shut up,” he said, his voice coming out as a rasp.

Startled, Faro grabbed Thrawn’s outstretched arm and guided him back down on the mattress.

“—and heightened sensitivity to sound,” the droid said. 

Faro shot it a quick glare. “Volume down, then,” she hissed. She covered Thrawn’s eyes with her palm so he wouldn’t be able to see the blinking lights on the droid. “What can we do for him?” she asked.

The droid calibrated. Its chestplate opened, revealing shelves of refrigerated medications. It pulled out a dizzying mix of bottles, pouring small measures of liquid into individual plastic cups and leaving them along with a series of capsules in a neat line on Thrawn’s bedside table.

Faro watched it carefully and was just about to ask for further instruction when it made a loud mechanical noise, earning a huff of pain from Thrawn. The droid printed off a thin piece of flimsi and handed it to Faro.

“He will need constant supervision in his current state,” said the droid while Faro read the instructions. “Are you capable?”

“I—” said Faro, looking down at Thrawn’s messy hair.

“Yes, yes, fine,” said Thrawn, who clearly didn't know what was going on. His face was still covered. “Dismissed, droid.”

“Sir,” said Faro, “the bridge—”

“You will be his caretaker?” asked the droid. “I warn you, he will become _very_ delirious before the fever breaks.”

“I don’t—” said Faro again, reaching for her comlink to call Hammerly.

“ _Yes_ ,” said Thrawn. “ _Dismissed_ , droid.” 

The droid started to wheel away; Faro put out a hand to stop it automatically, lifting her comlink to her lips at the same time. Her message to Hammerly was interrupted by a long, loud coughing fit from Thrawn — and in the meantime, the droid slipped past her and out the door, leaving her alone with Thrawn. 

She turned the comlink off again with a sigh, watching Thrawn like a hawk. He curled in on himself beneath the blankets, his face hidden as he coughed — painful, wet-sounding coughs that made Faro think he was going to hack up a lung at any moment.

It was a long moment before Thrawn pulled the blankets down again and gasped for air, his face flushed from fever and his hair in even worse disarray than before. Faro typed out a quick message to Hammerly, excusing herself from the bridge except in the case of an emergency, and then tangled her fingers in Thrawn’s hair, trying to comb through it.

He didn’t seem to notice what she was doing. Gradually, his eyes opened, red slits glowing in the dark but not focused on anything.

“You’re _really_ out of it,” Faro noted.

Thrawn closed his eyes again; he closed his mouth, too, trying to get his breathing under control. At the same time, he lifted his hand and found Faro’s fingers tangled in his hair. He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her hand, gently but insistently, until her palm was flat against his forehead.

Then, with another quiet sigh, he relaxed against the bed and seemed for a moment like he might fall asleep again. Faro watched him, brushing her thumb over the bridge of his nose. After only a few seconds, she could feel her skin warming against his, ruining the cooling effect of her palm — which, she told herself, was probably the only reason he wanted her there. 

“I’ll go get you a wet cloth,” she told Thrawn, slipping her hand off his forehead. His eyes fluttered open slightly, watching her as she left. 

She stepped over the clothes he’d left on the floor and made her way to the fresher, where she found that the death troopers had fixed his shower curtain and reorganized his medicine cabinet for him, leaving the fresher spotless. Quickly, Faro located a clean hand towel and wet it in the sink with the water tuned to its coldest setting.

Back in Thrawn’s room, she found him buried in the blankets once again. She folded the edge back so he could get some air and placed the towel over his forehead, earning a quiet hum of thanks. 

“Okay,” said Faro, straightening and examining the list of instructions the droid had given her. Thrawn adjusted the towel and peeked out at her, his eyes narrow. “Don’t look just yet,” Faro warned him. She took out her comlink and turned it on, using the dim light from her notifications to read the piece of flimsi; Thrawn, who refused to look away at her warning, grumbled and turned his head.

“I told you,” said Faro absently. She read through the instructions twice before folding the flimsi and putting it in her breast pocket, already eyeing the medications the droid had left behind. “Okay, fever reductant first.”

She fetched Thrawn a glass of water and carefully selected two capsules of fever reductant from the bedside table; according to the droid, this was the perfect dosage for a man of Thrawn’s height and weight, though his species added an unknown element to things — which was probably why the droid insisted on constant supervision. Faro placed the glass on the table and sat down next to Thrawn, tapping him on the chest until he opened his eyes.

“What?” he said, his voice coming out as a croak.

Faro winced. She held the pills aloft in her cupped hand. “You need to sit up,” she told him. “Can you do that for me?”

He let his hands fall away from his face and cast her a weary glare. “Commodore,” he said, struggling to sit up, “I’m not an invalid. And I certainly—”

His arms trembled and then gave out, and he fell back against his pillows with a huff of exasperation. “—don’t need constant—” he tried to continue.

He interrupted himself with a brief coughing fit. Faro watched him skeptically until he was done, at which point he only looked at her silently, with a beseeching expression on his face.

“Does that mean you need help sitting up?” she asked him levelly.

He gave an unhappy nod and held his arms out to her. Faro set the pills down on the edge of the table and leaned forward, hooking her hands behind Thrawn’s back and guiding him slowly into a sitting position. She got his pillow out from under him as she did so and placed it between his back and the headboard so he had something to lean against.

“Good?” she asked before pulling away.

Thrawn nodded, eyes closing against a rush of dizziness. He held his hand out blindly for the pills. With a quick smile, Faro placed each pill in his palm and then grabbed his wrist so he wouldn’t take them right away. She held the glass of water out and pressed it into his other hand.

“Ah,” he said, opening his eyes briefly to take the glass. He sipped from it and then palmed the pills into his mouth, grimacing as he swallowed. It triggered another coughing fit — inevitably — and Faro had to lean forward to take the glass from him quickly before he spilled it. She deposited the glass on the bedside table and then scooted closer to Thrawn on the bed, supporting him as he coughed into the crook of his elbow.

The coughing seemed to be dying down — and she was just about to ask him if he was alright — when Thrawn suddenly jerked his arm out of her grasp and flung the blankets off him. They flew right into Faro’s face and she jumped back in surprise, batting them away from her head just in time to see Thrawn shutting the fresher door behind him. 

The sound of vomiting was audible even from the other side of the room. Faro stood slowly, rearranging Thrawn’s blankets as she tried to busy herself with anything other than checking on him. 

First of all because she couldn’t stand the smell of vomit.

Second of all because he was 100% naked in there. 

So he would probably prefer it if she stayed out here, Faro reasoned with herself. He wouldn’t want a subordinate to see him like this — although ‘like this’ probably included _all_ of this, not just the naked part. She lined up Thrawn’s medications absently while she listened to him retch in the other room.

Of course, she thought, if he passed out in there, she would have to go in and get him, anyway. She grimaced, examining a bottle of potent cough medicine the droid had left behind. And it would be ten times more awkward for both of them if she waited until he passed out rather than just checking up on him now.

With a sigh, she crossed the room to Thrawn’s dresser and dug through the drawers until she came up with a pair of pajama pants. They were made of thick fleece — winter pajamas — but it looked like he didn’t own anything else. That, or his other pajamas were sitting in the laundry chute with the rest of the sweat-soaked clothes the death troopers had gotten rid of.

Faro folded the pants over her arms and approached the fresher, knocking once. She could hear Thrawn coughing inside so loudly that he probably didn’t hear her.

“Coming in, sir,” she announced, hitting the door release. 

The door slid open. Directly ahead of her was the toilet…

...with no one kneeling in front of it.

Faro glanced at the sink, expecting to find Thrawn there — but he wasn’t. Eyebrows furrowed, she glanced at the only other possibility — the bathtub — and let out an exasperated sigh when she saw Thrawn lying in it, his head tipped back against the porcelain edge and his eyes closed.

“I thought you were throwing up,” said Faro accusingly, throwing the pajama pants his way. Thrawn raised a hand to catch them, but missed. They landed half in the tub and half out.

“I did,” he said, his voice even more ragged than before.

“In the tub?” asked Faro, rushing forward to check the pajama pants for vomit. She reared back again when she got a glimpse of Thrawn’s legs, which were bent up and slightly spread. “ _Sir_ ,” she said, covering her eyes.

Groggily, Thrawn grabbed the pajama pants and pulled them into the tub with him so that they lay over his crotch. 

“Not in the tub,” he said, his eyes closed and his voice faint. “Got in the tub after.”

“Okay…” said Faro. She took a step backward, reached blindly for the toilet, and flushed it without looking at its contents. The smell of vomit dissipated a moment later. “So why did you get in the tub?” she asked Thrawn.

He covered his face, kneading his temples. “Wanted to lie down,” he mumbled. “It’s cold here. _I_ don’t know.”

He gestured vaguely to the porcelain. Faro crossed her arms and tilted her head to the side, studying what she could see of his face. 

“How delirious are you right now?” she asked. "The droid said you were going to get delirious. Do you know who I am?"

Thrawn snorted, letting his hands slide off his face so she could see his exhausted smile. “On a scale of one to ten, I am the _least_ delirious,” he said.

Faro sat on the edge of the tub so she could look at him better. “That’s not a number,” she said gently, trying to hide her amusement. Thrawn blinked at her and tried again.

“On a scale of one to ten, I am the least delirious I’ve ever been,” he said emphatically. 

“That’s not—” Faro cut herself off, shaking her head. “Okay, sure. Are you ready to come out of the tub?”

He shook his head at once and seemed to settle into the tub even further, his head falling back against the porcelain again at an uncomfortable-looking angle. Faro watched him for a moment.

“Lights: ten percent,” she said.

The lights came on gradually, staying at a low, dim level. Nevertheless, Thrawn groaned at the sight of them, lifting the leg of his pajama pants to cover his eyes. Faro leaned forward quickly, snatching the waistband of the pajamas to make sure Thrawn didn’t accidentally uncover his own cock. 

“What’s the matter?” asked Faro innocently. “Too bright?”

He gave a feeble nod, pressing the fleece material to his eyes.

“It’s nice and dark in the bedroom,” Faro coaxed him. 

“Ugh,” he said. “Lights: zero percent.”

Faro’s heart dropped as he used her own gambit against her, but it rose again a moment later when Thrawn started fumbling with the pajama pants, twisting them around so they were right-side-up. He pulled his legs closer to his chest and Faro glanced away, watching from the corner of her eye as Thrawn sleepily worked his way into them without standing up. 

“You need help standing?” she asked when he was done.

Silently, he held his hand out to her and Faro presented him with her arm, letting him lean on her as he stood. They walked back to the bedroom slowly; Thrawn collapsed onto his stomach in the bed as soon as they reached it, leaving Faro to unfold the blankets and tuck him in.

She was tucking Thrawn in, she realized somewhat dizzily. And he was _letting_ her do it; he seemed so tired and so ill that he didn’t fully realize how odd it was for his first officer to tend to him this way.

Or maybe Thrawn just didn’t care, Faro thought when she caught him watching her, his face unreadable. Thrawn had always been an unconventional commanding officer, after all. Maybe he didn’t think there was anything odd about this.

...he was still watching her, though.

“What?” Faro asked, bending down so her eyes were level with his. Thrawn blinked slowly and shook his head.

“Tarkin was here,” he said. It came out sounding halfway like a question.

“Mm, no, he wasn’t,” said Faro gently. 

What a terrible fever dream, she thought — to imagine Grand Moff Tarkin was in your bedroom. She shuddered a little as Thrawn closed his eyes. 

“You’re sure?” he asked her.

“Positive,” said Faro.

With a little sigh of relief, Thrawn settled back against the mattress. 

“Are you hungry?” Faro asked, watching him closely. “I could order you something from the galley. Soup, maybe? Or ice cream, to make your throat feel better?”

Thrawn grimaced. “No, thank you,” he said crisply, sounding more like himself than he had since she entered his quarters. 

“You’re sure? It might make you feel better.”

“I am too ill to eat anything at the moment,” said Thrawn firmly. “Thank you, Karyn.”

Faro, who had opened her mouth to argue with him, delicately closed it again at the sound of her first name. She searched around for something to say.

“What happened to your cold towel?” she asked eventually, gesturing to Thrawn’s forehead.

He gave a listless shrug, his eyes glassy from fever. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. 

“Take the blankets off, then,” said Faro, tugging at the covers. Thrawn held onto them as tightly as he could, but she pulled them out of his grip with ease. “Your temperature is too high for—”

A low sound almost like a whine emanated from Thrawn’s throat, stopping her in her tracks. He gave her a look so pathetic that she felt almost compelled to give him the blankets back. She hesitated, keeping the blankets away from his chest for a moment longer.

“Are you really cold?” she asked him.

He nodded, already starting to shiver, and Faro handed him the blankets back with a sigh. She’d barely gotten them tucked around his shoulders when he extricated an arm and held his hand out to her almost expectantly.

“What?” asked Faro, staring at his hand. 

“I’ve never had a caretaker before,” said Thrawn with what seemed like a good approximation of lucidity.

“Okay,” said Faro. She touched his open hand, his palm soft against her skin. “What’s this, though? What does this mean?”

“Your hand,” said Thrawn.

“This is _your_ hand,” Faro told him, prodding his fingertips. “What are you doing with it?”

A line appeared between his eyebrows. “You asked for it,” he said, sounding astonished at the question.

“I most certainly did not,” said Faro. 

He gave her a skeptical look, his hand still extended to her. “You don’t want it?”

Faro sighed through her nose. She gently took his hand, closing the fingers. “Let’s put this back under the covers, shall we?” she said, guiding Thrawn’s hand back to the blankets. Thrawn allowed her to do it, but watched every move with a doubtful expression on his face. Faro made eye contact with him and raised her eyebrows, challenging him to say whatever was on his mind.

“This is all very confusing,” he said, looking around his quarters with a sigh.

“Okay,” said Faro, sitting back a little. “Clearly it was a bad idea to move you, sir, because your delusion scale has skyrocketed _far_ past ten.”

“Oh,” said Thrawn weakly. “Really?” He studied her face. “I didn’t understand any of that, Karyn.”

He’d somehow managed to get his hands out from beneath the covers again and was holding them out to her palm-up. With a shake of her hand, Faro touched his palms and asked him again, “What’s this?”

“What?” said Thrawn.

Oh, she was going to kill him.

“What’s this?” she said patiently, running a finger over his palm. “Why are you holding your hands out like this?”

“You asked—”

Faro muttered a string of unpleasantries to herself and manipulated his hands back beneath the covers. “Let’s leave these here, yes?” she said, placing each of Thrawn’s hands against his stomach in what she hoped was a comfortable position for him. “Is that alright?”

He nodded, and Faro folded the blankets back over him. 

“I’m going to call the galley for some soup,” she said. Thrawn nodded again, seeming to understand, but as soon as she stood and moved away from the bed, his hand shot out for her.

“ _Karyn_ ,” he said, sounding scandalized.

“I’m right here,” said Faro patiently. She touched his outstretched hand. “See? I’m right within touching distance. I was just moving away a little so the light from my comlink wouldn’t hurt your eyes.”

He frowned at her, but didn’t argue — nor did he move his hand back. With an exasperated sigh, Faro twined her fingers with his, holding his hand at an _extremely_ awkward angle while she commed the galley and asked for them to send up a tray.

“Can you swallow another pill?” Faro asked him when she was done, squeezing his hand. He gazed back at her, saying nothing. “Thrawn?” she prompted.

Sounding peeved, he pulled his hand away from hers and said, “I nodded.”

“You didn’t,” said Faro. She snorted, shaking her head a little. “No offense, sir, but you are _so_ out of it.”

“Out of what?” asked Thrawn. Faro didn’t answer; she grabbed a cup of cough syrup and a pain reliever while Thrawn pushed himself into a sitting position with obvious difficulty. He swung his legs over the side of the bed with what Faro thought was surprising grace, considering his condition — and then immediately he tilted forward, losing his balance and sliding right off the edge of the mattress.

“Oh, kriff,” said Faro, depositing the cough syrup and pill onto the bedside table as quickly and carefully as she could. She managed to stop Thrawn’s forward momentum before he landed face-first on the floor. “Easy, there,” she said. 

Thrawn’s eyes were closed, his face pinched with nausea and dizziness. He was completely limp as Faro lifted him back onto the bed; she kept him in a sitting position, supporting him by the arms until some of the tension in his face faded away.

“You’re strong,” he murmured, his head bowed. “What is your training regimen?”

Faro huffed out a laugh. She handed him the cough syrup first and coaxed him into drinking it, then handed him the pill and a glass of water.

“Will you teach me?” he asked, eyeing her biceps (which were _definitely_ smaller than his, but Faro wasn’t about to point that out to him).

“Drink first,” she told him.

Thrawn obeyed, his hands shaking a little as he held the glass to his lips. To her surprise, he downed almost all of it, only stopping when she put a hand on the rim of the glass and tilted it away from him. 

“The pill?” she reminded him.

He nodded and swallowed it, draining the last of the glass. Faro had barely collected the glass from him before he collapsed back against the bed, shivering as he buried himself in the blankets.

“It’s cold in here,” he said, his voice barely audible.

“Well, you’ve got a fever,” Faro said. She took out the droid’s instructions and read them again, crossing out the portions she’d already accomplished. By the time she finished and glanced up again, Thrawn’s shivering had intensified. “Wait here,” she said.

She crossed the room to his closet, searching inside. There were extra linens on the top shelf -- which meant she could change his sweat-soaked sheets, she noted with some relief, as soon as she could manage to get him up and standing for more than five minutes. She took down a blanket and shook it out, walking back to Thrawn’s bed.

“Here,” she said, wrapping the extra blanket around him. There was an audible sigh of relief as she did so, and she could feel Thrawn relaxing against the bed, burrowing into the blankets and yawning so hard his jaw cracked.

 _Why am I not recording this?_ Faro wondered.

For posterity, of course. Not for blackmail.

“Better?” she asked Thrawn.

He hummed in response. Faro took a seat next to him with a sigh and stroked his hair, wondering if he would even be able to eat whatever the galley sent up. Thrawn leaned into her touch — leaned into it so hard, in fact, that soon enough his head was in her lap, much to Faro’s consternation. She shook her head and kept running her fingers through his hair.

“What’s happening?” he asked, his voice coming out something like a moan.

Faro bit back a smile. “Nothing’s happening,” she said. “You’re lying in bed. Why?”

Thrawn didn’t answer.

“Is the room spinning?” Faro guessed.

“ _Is_ it?” he said, sounding alarmed. He tried to lift his head off her lap and then gave up; evidently, it took too much effort. Faro tried not to laugh.

“No,” she said. “Don’t worry about it. You’re sick.”

Thrawn kept his head in her lap, his face hidden against her abdomen, and said nothing. For a long moment, there was silence. 

“You’re comfortable,” he told her finally.

Faro sighed, running her fingers through his hair and over the shell of his ear. 

“Will you stay?” Thrawn asked.

“I’m staying,” Faro confirmed. “Go to sleep.”

Thrawn hummed against her stomach, his breath warming her even through her clothes. He didn’t speak again; Faro kept running her fingers through his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp and straightening the tangled strands until she felt his breathing even out. He relaxed against her entirely, his head a dead weight in her lap that could not under any circumstances be moved.

And she didn’t mind it, she realized. She didn’t mind it at all.

In fact, if it weren’t for the fact that they had a ship to run, she’d almost _like_ it if Thrawn got sick more often. She considered this revelation for a moment, turning it over in her head and trying to figure out what it meant.

It had nothing to do with the way he’d held his hands out to her, she decided. Or the way he’d said her first name so intimately, like he’d said it a thousand times before. And it had nothing to do with the fact that she’d seen him naked today.

She just liked seeing him taken down a peg, she decided. That was all.

~~She was still running her fingers through his hair when the death troopers brought his tray from the galley in.~~


End file.
